Smart glasses had a moment at Augmented World Expo 2026 — and I was there for all of it. Here's your preview of what's coming.
Sending this from a co-working spot in Japan, where I'm traveling for work and a little pleasure after AWE. I'll be honest: rather than wait to record a polished intro for every episode, I wanted to drop this quick update so you know what's heading your way before it starts hitting your feed. The content is too good to sit on.
At AWE 2026, Snap announced the new Specs AR AI-powered smart glasses, and if any year was the year of smart glasses in XR, this was it. I sat down with leaders from Specs, Meta Display, and the XREAL team — three of the biggest players shaping where this hardware is headed — and those conversations are some of my strongest to date. Smart glasses aren't a concept anymore. They're here, they're good, and the people building them are moving fast.
I also talked with Neil Trevett of the Khronos Group and the Metaverse Standards Forum about the open content standards that will determine whether spatial computing reaches everyone or stays niche. And with Sean Mann, CEO of RP1, about open metaverse browsers — the next evolution of what a URL can do. These are the infrastructure conversations that don't get enough attention, and they're fascinating.
On the enterprise side: honest conversations with leaders from Salesforce, Wieden+Kennedy, and Amazon about how organizations are actually applying XR right now — not in the future, right now.
And a first for the Tech Glow Up — my first ASL conversation, with Michael Alan Nesmith of Not Breaking Space, on accessible and universal design in XR. I hope you love it as much as I did.
Then there's the Spatial Creator Spotlight. Close to ten interviews from the Snap SPECS Developer Bootcamp — artists, designers, researchers, and tinkerers turning what's technically possible into things people actually want. Those drop first, followed by AWE episodes twice a week for most of the rest of the summer.
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Hey, it's Nathan I'm so excited to be sharing new episodes with you from Augmented World Expo twenty twenty-six. As you might be able to see, I'm currently traveling in Japan, for work and some pleasure. And, I won't be adding the introductions to each episode like I have been, because I just wanna get the content out to you faster. So while I'm here at my co-working spot, and the connection is good, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what we saw at Augmented World Expo and the kinds of episodes that you can expect coming in the next few weeks. At AWE twenty twenty-six, you probably already heard that Snap announced their new Specs AR AI-powered smart glasses. And honestly, if any year was the year of smart glasses in XR, it was this year. There were many of the big players present talking about their offerings, as well as lots of new up-and-comers. I've got interviews with leaders from Specs, from Meta Display, as well as the XREAL team. in addition to interviews with those leading smart glasses manufacturers, I have the distinct pleasure of talking with Neil Trevett of the Khronos Group and the Metaverse Standards Forum, who was talking about their new steps to push the spatial computing industry forward with standards, specifically around making content, and XR experiences more accessible and easily discovered by everyone. We're talking about open web standards. And we further that conversation with the team, with Sean Mann, the CEO and founder at RP1, who talks about their work on open web or open metaverse browsers as well, sort of the next dimension of the URL, if you will. In addition to these leaders in the smart glasses and standards spaces, I talk with a handful of enterprise users of XR technologies. We've got leaders from Salesforce and folks who had been at places like Wieden+Kennedy and Amazon for some really interesting conversations about what- users of this tech are looking for and how enterprise is able to apply them. Also have a fantastic conversation with Michael Nesmith, Michael Alan Nesmith of Not Breaking Space, talking about accessible and, universal design and accessible technologies. It's my first ASL conversation on the Tech Glow Up, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I also will be soon publishing, the close to ten interviews we had with spatial creators for my newer series, the Spatial Creator Spotlight, where I talk with the people who I see as the keystone, to spatial computing's advancement, the artists, the designers, the researchers, the tinkerers who are taking what is possible with these technologies and turning them into the interactions, applications, and experiences that people actually will use these tools for. Also, supporting the, sort of in anticipation of the Specs announcement, I had the extreme, delight and opportunity to talk with close to a dozen spatial creators live from the Snap Campus at the first ever Specs Developers Bootcamp. And I'm so excited to be sharing more of those interviews with you soon. You'll be seeing those Spatial Creator Spotlights coming first, in addition to the Tech Glow Up episodes from AWE starting next week. And, lots of great content coming for you. episodes twice a week, for most of the rest of the summer and maybe a couple while I'm here in Japan. I hope you're having a great day. It's a little bit rainy, and stormy thanks to some typhoons off the coast, but all is well and all is safe. I hope you're having a great summer and can't wait to, share all this fantastic new content with you, from the Tech Glow Up and the Spatial Creator Spotlight. Thanks a lot.